THE TELEGRAPH: Rahm Emanuel, who has been chosen by Barack Obama to be the White House chief of staff, is known by colleagues as "Rahmbo" - a nickname reflecting his reputation as one of the most ferociously combative figures in Washington.
Mr Emanuel, who received training in ballet as a boy, has shown no lightness of step in his political career: would-be enemies are advised to heed the story of a pollster who wronged him and promptly received a large, decomposing fish in the post.
Reflecting on his own foul-mouthed, attack-dog style, Mr Emanuel has said: "I wake up some mornings hating me too." Commentators have suggested that Mr Obama, who ran a lofty campaign based on national unity and bipartisanship, has recognised the need to employ a tough enforcer to push through his policy programme.
Born in Chicago, Illinois on November 29, 1959, to a doctor and a hospital technician, Mr Emanuel was brought up in a household that combined black civil rights activism with devout Judaism. His religious devotion has endured: he recently secured a special waiver from his rabbi to work through Rosh Hashanah during negotiations over the $800 billion banking bail-out.
Mr Emanuel grew up with a sister and two brothers - one of whom, Ari, grew up to be a talent agent in Los Angeles and provided the inspiration for the character Ari Gold in the television series Entourage. He himself was the real-life spark for the character of Josh Lyman, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff in the West Wing.
As a teenager, while working part-time in a fast-food restaurant, Mr Emanuel severed the middle finger on his right hand in a meat-slicing machine. After he chose to go swimming in Lake Michigan rather than go to hospital for stitches, Mr Emanuel's wound became severely infected and, after he came close to death, the top of his finger was amputated.
While studying at a Jewish day school, Mr Emanuel trained in ballet, and was talented enough to be offered a scholarship to the world-renowned Joffrey Ballet company. However, he turned it down in favour of studying the dance style at Sarah Lawrence College, a liberal arts institution, from where he graduated in 1981.
While at Sarah Lawrence, Mr Emanuel joined the team for the congressional campaign of fellow Chicagoan David Robertson. Via a master's degree in speech and communication at Northwestern University in 1985, he went on to work for several other Democratic campaigns, culminating in a role as chief fundraiser in Richard Daley's successful campaign for Mayor of Chicago in 1989.
He took a break from politics during the 1991 Gulf War, volunteering as a mechanic on an army base in Israel. It was on his return that he joined the presidential primary campaign of Bill Clinton, then the Governor of Arkansas. It was to prove the move that launched his national political career. >>> By Jon Swaine | November 6, 2008
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